Re:Missing the Point of WebAssembly
by aseipp on Tuesday January 09, 2024 @03:59PM
(#38932025)
> As I understand it, it's not even really possible today to make WebAssembly do anything meaningful in the browser without trampolining back out to JavaScript anyway, which seems like a remarkable missed opportunity.
It was always the goal for WebAssembly code living in the browser to have some form of object model/DOM integration, and interaction with JavaScript objects. What form it would take exactly wasn't clear. But that was never a goal for the original 1.0 specification (MVP), and not even in spec for the current 2.0 draft -- which mostly add a bunch more useful instructions and features, but nothing earth shattering.
The reality is that whatever solution gets accepted has to be supported and continue working for what is effectively ~infinite time, in multiple major browser engines. For custom runtimes it's sort of "whatever", but webpages can live forever so it's taking a lot of time to get right. But there was clearly a lot of value to be had without that, hence 1.0 was the "MVP."
It was always the goal for WebAssembly code living in the browser to have some form of object model/DOM integration, and interaction with JavaScript objects. What form it would take exactly wasn't clear. But that was never a goal for the original 1.0 specification (MVP), and not even in spec for the current 2.0 draft -- which mostly add a bunch more useful instructions and features, but nothing earth shattering.
The reality is that whatever solution gets accepted has to be supported and continue working for what is effectively ~infinite time, in multiple major browser engines. For custom runtimes it's sort of "whatever", but webpages can live forever so it's taking a lot of time to get right. But there was clearly a lot of value to be had without that, hence 1.0 was the "MVP."